Guitar legend Phil Keaggy comes to Sellersville Theater

By
Rob Nagy, The Mercury

Thursday, June 27, 2013

Phil Keaggy is one of the few Christian recording artists who have managed to successfully cross over into mainstream music. A profound talent seemingly destined to play the guitar, Keaggy has released dozens of solo albums and appeared with a variety artists spanning five decades and counting.

He is a seven-time winner of the Gospel Music Association’s (GMA) Dove Award for Instrumental Album of the Year and two-time Grammy Award nominee for Best Rock Gospel Album. He has been recognized by Guitar Player Magazine’s Readers’ Poll as one of the world’s top-three “finger-style” and “finger-picking” guitarists.

“WaterSky” (2012), featuring pianist Jeff Johnson, is Keaggy’s latest effort in a year that also saw the release of two additional albums — “Live from Kegsworth Studio” and “The Cover of Love.”

“‘WaterSky’ is a really pretty album,” says Keaggy. “It’s beautiful to listen to music that doesn’t demand a whole lot of you. Have you ever noticed how sometimes music is played while you’re walking through a store and the lyrics are so distracting and sometimes instrumental music is so nice ‘cause you can just have your thoughts and feel the emotion of the music? Jeff and I do that very well.”

A music enthusiast from his earliest days, Keaggy was enamored at first by the early rock ‘n’ roll of Elvis Presley and Johnny Ray before classical caught his attention. It was his father who first bought him a Sears Silvertone guitar, which he mastered to the point of playing professionally by his early teens as a member of his first group, The Squires.

“I asked my dad for a set of drums for my 10th birthday but he came home with a Sears Silvertone guitar,” recalls Keaggy. “I had wanted a set of drums, but my folks couldn’t afford them, so I got the guitar.”

By the late ’60s, Keaggy, then a high school junior, cofounded the power trio Glass Harp. The band signed a contract with Decca Records and performed in a handful of U.S. concert tours. The trio opened for Chicago, Traffic, Iron Butterfly and Yes. On the strength of Keaggy’s jaw dropping guitar riffs and the group’s avant-garde sound, the band attained a cult following. Glass Harp released three albums during the height of its career — “Glass Harp” (1970), “Synergy” (1971) and “It Makes Me Glad” (1972).

In 1970 tragedy struck when Keaggy’s mother was killed in a car crash involving both of his parents. This life-altering event, combined with Keaggy’s admitted drug abuse, found the guitarist turning to religious faith and declaring himself a born-again Christian.

Following his 1972 departure from Glass Harp, Keaggy made his solo recording debut with the release of the “What a Day” album one year later. His follow-up, “Love Broke Thru” (1976), featured the classic Christian single “Your Love Broke Through,” considered to this day one of the 100 Greatest Christian Albums of all time along with his 1996 album “Orphans of God.” Ironically, it is Keaggy’s “The Master and the Musician” (1978) album, whose title track reached No. 1 on the Christian charts, that has become his biggest selling record.

“I never felt comfortable with being anyone’s icon or guitar hero,” says Keaggy. “I’m just a regular guy that puts one foot in front of the other just like anyone else. that old expression, ‘I put my trousers on one leg at a time just like anyone else.’

“I’ve hopefully been, and I think I have, an influence for people to believe in God, and that’s been part of why I’ve been put here on the earth. I really believe that.”

In 2007, Keaggy was inducted into the Gospel Music Hall of Fame. One year later the readers of “Acoustic Guitar Magazine” recognized Keaggy by honoring him with the Gold Level Award as the “Best Spiritual Worship Guitarist.”

“I try to be honest with my playing,” says Keaggy. “It’s good to stay creative and be working at it and do the best I can. I’ve always been one that likes to experiment with melody and music and sounds and, at times, lyrics to see what comes out.

“I live in Nashville where in just about every part of town you’ve got guitar players that my jaw just drops when I watch them play, they are so good,” added Keaggy. “Then you look at the talent that’s around the country, and it’s no place to get a big head about anything. I hopefully have the heart of Jesus in a lot of what I do, what I say and how I live. I feel honored and blessed to have been a musician all my life and doing something I love. I keep working, and the Lord keeps providing for us, and I’m very grateful.”